In Shanxi, the "Sacred Land of The Buddha", a Silk Road art exhibition is opening in the Winter Shanxi Museum. More than 190 treasures from the Eastern Mediterranean, the Two Rivers Valley, Persia, Afghanistan and India and Pakistan came to Shanxi from the Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Art Museum in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan.
Known as the "contemporary Xuanzang", Ikuo Hirayama walked the Silk Road more than 70 times in his life, preserved a large number of Gandhara Buddha statues in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, and came to Shanxi, which is known as the "Museum of Chinese Buddhist Culture", to tell the past and present lives of Buddhism. Hirayama expanded Xuanzang's Buddhist path, going deep into Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, and his journey coincided with that of Gan Ying of the Eastern Han Dynasty and Laban Saoma of the Yuan Dynasty.
The curators designed the route as a retrograde of the Silk Road, from the Mediterranean to China, from west to east. Perhaps it is to put the most precious cultural relics at the forefront to attract the audience, but there is a feeling of seeing the East from the perspective of a Westerner, like Marco Polo's trip to China.
Reliefs of the Greek gods in the Eastern Mediterranean The pictures in this article were taken by the author
Cultural relics are precious and beautiful, especially in the Levant and the Two Rivers Valley, dating back to 2000 BC. However, for ordinary audiences, if they do not have a certain foundation in historiography, it is difficult to understand, and some people even directly call "can't understand". Although curators put rare cultural relics at the forefront to attract attention, if they fail to carry out timely "art education" for the audience, it is difficult to achieve the desired effect. If it can be more refined, place historical science brochures at the door for the audience to warm up in advance, or carry out more 3D effects and multimedia displays on the venue, which can increase the audience's sense of immersion more than just placing cultural relics in the window.
The exhibition makes up for the long-standing cognitive bias of Chinese audiences, Chinese have heard Greek mythological stories since childhood, and habitually regard the golden ratio and perfect lines as European aesthetics, but the Greek aesthetic on the Silk Road cultural relics reminds the viewer that "Greek aesthetics" are only modern and contemporary geopolitical products, never exclusive to the West. In today's world, the West is synonymous with "victor", which is swept away along with civilization, subtly stealing the ownership of civilization.
Gandhara relief "Journey to the Pure Land", two Iranians sit on a carriage, and the garland in the right hand is the Greek god dionysus
The exhibition undoubtedly brings viewers a rare experience in today's world, and most of the artifacts come from today's most chaotic and dark countries: Iraq, which broke out into war in 2003, Syria, which broke out in civil war in 2011, Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban in 2021, Pakistan, where border conflicts are unresolved, and Iran, which is regarded by the West as the "axis of evil". In the midst of brutal war and bloodshed, countless treasures were razed but protected by Japan. Japanese people undoubtedly have a deep love for the Silk Road, and the most classic documentary about the Silk Road to date is the "Silk Road" produced by Japan's NHK in 1980. Hirayama believes that Chinese culture and Buddhist culture are the source of Japanese culture, and Japan should reciprocate the favor of Chinese culture.
The war has made the world forget the value of Syria's civilization, this exhibition brings people the opportunity to re-understand Syria, Palmyra, Aleppo was once the westernmost end of the ancient Silk Road, was listed by the United Nations as a world cultural heritage.
1800 BC Syrian portrait spout pot
In 2015, the terrorist group Islamic State ransacked the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, destroying both the Temple of Balxamin and the Temple of Bell. Khalid Assad, 82, a Syrian national treasure archaeologist and director of the Palmyra Antiquities Bureau, was beheaded and displayed as a martyr in The Ruins of Palmyra in order to protect the civilization of his homeland. Khalid Assad would never have known that the Palmyra artifacts he had protected all his life were still reverently protected by a Japanese scholar and saluted by distant Chinese audiences today.
The head of a philosopher in Palmyra, Syria
When I saw several statues of Palmyra, Syria, from the 2nd to the 3rd centuries AD at the Shanxi Museum, I fell for its exquisite and deep face, and I was also impressed by the eyes that were full of thousands of years of sadness. This is the head of a Greek philosopher, with curly hair, a handsome face, and a look of deep sorrow and compassion in his eyes, as if he had seen the misery of today's world more than 1800 years ago.
The distant history of this war-torn Arab country in the Middle East is not Islam, but the magnificent ancient Greece and ancient Rome. As early as 200-300 AD, Palmyra has preserved many statues of the dead, scattered in monuments, there are old people with sad and empty eyes, there are women with long hair and crying out in pain, their expressions are martyrs, pouring out the sorrow of this land for thousands of years. Will Khalid Assad, who was martyred in Palmyra, also be transformed into a statue of the dead, forever preserved in the ruins?
Portrait of palmyra's deceased
They were the dead, and when I gazed through the glass at these thousand-year-old looks, I saw that they never died. Each sculpture is still alive, retaining an eternal soul. Exquisite small stone carvings tell the story of Nelgar, the king of Pluto in Babylonian mythology, and the ruins are always connected to death, but never dead. If Khalid Assad in heaven learns that his lifelong love is now being viewed in China by people who also love these cultural relics, can he get a little comfort? Hirayama died in 2009, what would it be like to learn that the ancient city of Palmyra was bombed and his fellow scholars were martyred? At this moment, are the two archaeologists of the East and the West traveling through time and space to pay tribute to each other in heaven?
The exhibition provides a rare window into transforming the viewer's worldview. These exhibits originate in Aleppo, Basra, Mosul, Baghdad, Kabul, Peshawar and other places, and every time the "News Network" comes to an end, these place names are constantly mentioned in the world news section, and people are numb and indifferent to these far-flung place names on television, except for war, chaos, poverty, they seem to have nothing, abandoned, hammered to death, beggars like beggars. But sweeping away the absurdity of the situation in the world today and the indisputable modernity, these place names were once the most dazzling jewels in the history of human civilization. The most splendid civilization is always two sides of the same body with the most broken modern, good and evil are the same body, which is the "dualism" of Persian Zoroastrianism, good and evil are constantly clashing, and the world has coexisted from the beginning.
Persian human-winged beast apparatus, symbol of Zoroastrian faith
Incense vessels from the Parthian Empire recount the history of Zoroastrianism in Persia. Artifacts showcase the exquisite way of life of ancient Persia: metalware, glass wine glasses, imperial crowns, gold, silver and copper coins, luxury jewelry, even the wine infusion vessels such as "Laitong" are unique cattle and beasts, and the quiet museum seems to be full of songs and dances. Unfortunately, the exhibition does not have a good combination with the collection of the Shanxi Museum, and the Cultural Relics of the Xia Dynasty, the Wine Vessel of the Sassanid Dynasty in Persia, and the Tomb of Yu Hong engraved with Persian motifs can all correspond to the cultural relics of the same period in the exhibition before they can be added.
In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton writes, "It is very effective to realize our limitations in magnificence, to help us accept the incomprehensible and distressing things, and to accept the fact that we will eventually turn to dust." "Ikuo Hirayama's Silk Road journey has accumulated 800,000 kilometers, and the Journey to Central Asia is deserted and inaccessible. Hirayama's fascination with desolation is related to his birth. Growing up in ruins, he was a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, witnessed the destruction of all things, and contracted leukemia from radiation. He walked on the ruined Silk Road, took solace from Buddhism, and eventually healed the disease.
Ikuo Hirayama at the time of sketching
Hirayama's systematic collection of Gandhara Buddha statues is the climax of the exhibition and the most admirable part of the Chinese audience. Buddhism is an important cultural accumulation in Shanxi, and the exhibition of gandhara Buddha statues reached the hearts of the audience. In August 2021, the Taliban reoccupied Afghanistan, which is known as the "graveyard of empires" in the dust of terrorism, but in the 6th century BC it was once a pure land of Buddhism called Gandhara.
Relief of the story of the first turn of the Falun
Gandharan art is a mixture of Indian Brahmanism, Persian and Greek art styles, buddha and Greek gods often appear in the same sculpture theme, I can't help but wonder whether Greek art for Gandhara, whether it is influence or imitation. The Gandhara monument, the Bamiyan Buddha, in Afghanistan, was destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. However, looking at the sculpture in front of you, there is only the non-attachment of the Dharma, no distance, no superiority, and harmony.
Gandhara Buddhism offers artificial statues, and its appearance is bright and divine
It is valuable that the curators have compared the Buddha statue in the Yungang Grottoes in Shanxi with the Gandhara statue, and showed in the form of pictures the similarities between the Buddha's posture in the Gandhara period and the Northern Wei Dynasty of China, intuitively showing the influence of Gandhara art on Chinese Buddhist statues, in fact, Chinese Buddhism is likely not directly from India, but from Gandhara. However, Gandhara is still unfamiliar to most Chinese audiences, and if the relationship between Gandhara and Chinese Buddhism can be explained more on the explanatory wall, the audience will have a stronger sense of understanding of it, otherwise it is just a sloppy flower and lacks connection.
The dynasties and place names mentioned in the exhibition mostly use the common western titles, which increases the difficulty of Chinese audiences' cognition, because the terms of silk road place names are different from east to west, such as "Parthian Empire" is the "Sabbath Empire" in Chinese history books, "Gandhara" and "Guishuang" are the "Great Moon Clan" in Chinese history books.
Gandhara Buddha statue, quiet and long
Coming out of the exhibition hall, I saw in the souvenir shop that the cultural and creative products created according to the shape of the cultural relics in the exhibition were very novel. However, the products are not yet systematic, especially the exquisite Gandhara art, which is definitely a rich source of inspiration for cultural creativity and is worth developing well. In addition, Hirayama Ikuo's Silk Road Collection and Gandhara Art have many publications in Japan and China, which can be sold in cultural and creative stores, which not only helps the audience understand cultural relics, but also realizes the linkage between the publishing industry and the curatorial industry.
The exhibition not only needs precious cultural relics, but also needs more refined visual design and industrial linkage, in order to combine with the aesthetic needs and cultural consumption of contemporary people. Hirayama Ikuo's Silk Road Collection has been exhibited in many cities in China, and the Japanese people's curiosity about Silk Road art is worth learning from the domestic art community, as Hirayama Ikuo once said: "In the unremitting pursuit, everyone can obtain self-salvation, and it is possible for heaven to change the plan." ”